Did I say that…??
Thoughts, musings and miscellaneous ramblings of a modern day Patriot.
Proud Dad of a US Marine, Proud Brother of a Green US Navy Corpsman, Proud American.

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

So, wow. It’s been a
long, long time.

This morning, on my way to work… a truck cut across 3 lanes
in front of me. I swerved hard to miss him.
It is amazing how much goes through your head when something like that
happens. I knew I was going to die…

Keep in mind all of this happened in less than 2-3
seconds. I was in the far
right lane going right to left in the picture.
I have a small car and the road in that area has a slight upgrade to
it. I saw the top of the delivery truck
coming in the left most oncoming lane and it seemed oddly fast in its
approach. Traffic for the light up to
the left off the picture was backed up past the drive way entrance on the lower
right. Like I said I was in the far
right lane, no traffic, headed for the second entrance to go to the Sheetz gas
station on the corner. I could see that
the truck was not slowing. I glanced at
the traffic sitting still and notice that everyone had left an opening for left
turning traffic. For this massively large (compared to my little car) truck to turn… in
front of me. What were they thinking, why isn’t he stopping… he’s not
stopping. Oh shit, I’m fucked! I’m
guessing I was doing 40. I saw the truck
make the turn without slowing. I jumped on
the brakes. There was a pickup coming out of the parking lot. I’m dead… this is it, I’m going to die. I swerved right-left-right and missed
everyone.

[Dramatic pause for effect]

I was down to 20 mph.
I looked back in the rearview mirror, after the longest 3 seconds of my
life, before I entered the parking lot. The
delivery truck had stopped. Its front
tire was in the right wheel portion of what was my lane, his bumper was over
the right edge of the lane.

I thought my heart was going to explode. Even now, as I type this, some 5 hours later,
I can feel my heart starting to race.

In my mind’s eye, I saw the delivery truck hit me at the
rear axle, spin me around into the curb maybe missing the stopped pick-up. I saw me flip upside down at the curb and land
in the ditch. The whole thing seemed like
a slow motion re-play. I had that series
of thoughts and the whole thing was over. I was through it. I turned into the second driveway and parked
at the gas station for about 20 minutes.
I was shaking, my heart was pounding.
I felt like my brain was rattling. Oddly enough not fast. I measured it on my phone app and it recorded
79 bpm. They were like heart explosions, it wasn’t racing, it was exploding. I could feel my heart pounding in my finger
tips.

His bumper was over the right edge of MY lane. I doubt I swerved that much. It took him some
time to see me, react and stop but OMG! I swear it was inches. I was inches from
ending.

Be prepared, know your car - How does it react in high speed
swerve situations? Under steer? Over
steer? Does the ass-end break loose? If so, what do you do now? how do you
react?

Situational awareness - see the things around you. I should
have known the potential for that ‘gap-in-traffic someone-coming-through shenanigans’
was high given the traffic in the area. I probably should have slowed down.

Right now, at work, 5+ hours later, I’m not worth a
shit. I can’t concentrate. I can’t stop thinking
about those events. Hopefully writing this will let me release it. I’m guessing this is 1% of Iraq/Afghanistan
vets PTSD. Ya’ll have my sympathy. This sucks!